When Arthur Roger launched his gallery in 1978, there were only a handful of others focused on new art. The scene has expanded greatly since then, but Roger has more than kept abreast of the ever-changing art world through the years, as we see in this sprawling new exhibition of works from his personal collection, which he donated recently to the New Orleans Museum of Art.
ARTISTS ARE ALWAYS willing to share the bounty of the view in ways that forever reinforce and redirect our forever-wandering gaze, thus narrowing the passage of our distraction. Perhaps in an effort to jar us into looking more closely at the aftermath of progress, Canadian Edward Burtynsky presents a series of color photographs collectively titled “Intentional Landscapes” at Arthur Roger Gallery that defy orientation and require detailed titles to let us know just where and what we are looking at in the picture window images.
For Christopher Saucedo’s exhibition at Arthur Roger, “Neapolitan (Comic Book Diplomacy, Go Cups and Water Bottle Buoys),” a digital print picturing three cups of strawberry, chocolate, and vanilla colored drinks serves as the visual metaphor that the title indicates. Saucedo says he made this piece to try to encapsulate the whole three-part show. According to his research, after Italians brought gelato to America, the three most popular flavors were vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry. In turn, three distinct bodies of work join in the artist’s first solo exhibition with the gallery.
Before Katrina, Saucedo was fascinated with how people related to water, specifically how much water we displace or take up. One of his earliest experiments involved the artist stepping into a large barrel of water in order to assess his fluid volume. It wasn’t until after Katrina that he began thinking creatively and critically about clean water and its availability.
It’s a safe bet to say that the contemporary art scene in New Orleans would be a lot less interesting without Arthur Roger. For nearly 40 years, his gallery has been a focal point for introducing the city to major currents in the national and international art scene, as well as for launching and nurturing the careers of some of the most prominent New Orleans-based artists working today.
[Arthur Roger’s] donation — paintings, sculpture and photography by local and national luminaries of modern art — comprises a new NOMA exhibit, “Pride of Place: The Making of Contemporary Art in New Orleans.” The exhibit opens Friday and runs through Sept. 3. In the exhibit’s 143-page catalog, museum Director Susan M. Taylor describes the gift as “transformational.” It “significantly expands” NOMA’s contemporary art holdings and “reaffirms the museum’s commitment to the work of local New Orleans artists,” she said.
Neapolitan (Comic Book Diplomacy, Go Cups and Water Bottle Buoys), Christopher Saucedo’s latest exhibition at Arthur Roger Gallery assembles varied works from the sculptor with an emphasis on his Comic Book Diplomacy series.
Not everything is up for years. Mass MoCA’s partnership with the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation includes exhibiting artists who have had residencies at the artist’s former estate on Captiva Island, Fla. Dawn DeDeaux and Lonnie Holley, in the show “Thumbs Up for the Mothership,” revel in Rauschenberg’s rummage-sale sensibility.
New Orleans native Dawn DeDeaux opens a new exhibition next week as part of the grand opening of Building 6 at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA). DeDeaux shows together with Lonnie Holley and other Building 6 artists including Laurie Anderson, Louise Bourgeois, Jenny Holzer and James Turrell. The new MASSMoCA Building 6 makes the museum one of the largest venues for contemporary art in the world.
On June 1, Arthur Roger’s personal collection of paintings, sculptures, drawings, photographs and mixed media pieces will be taken off his walls, packed away and carted over to the New Orleans Museum of Art. He recently donated more than 80 pieces to the museum, including works by national and regional artists such as Luis Cruz Azaceta, Willie Birch, Douglas Bourgeois, Robert Colescott, George Dureau, Robert Gordy, Deborah Kass, Catherine Opie, Robert Polidori, Holton Rower and John Waters, among others.